Perception of Eagles' Chip Kelly not the reality

KENJON BARNER remembers the time during his freshman year at Oregon when Chip Kelly, then the Ducks' offensive coordinator, paid a surprise visit to one of his classes.

What he remembers most about it is that, well, he wasn't there. He blew off that class, as he did many of his classes his first year in Eugene. He was back in his dorm sleeping.

"My freshman year I was a complete mess-up," admitted the Eagles running back. "I got myself together later on, but early on, I was a mess-up.

"That morning, I got a call from my academic adviser asking me if I was in class. [I said), 'uh-huh.' He said, 'Well, Chip's there.' I said, 'Really? I'm on my way.' So I show up and Chip's sitting outside the class and he says to me, 'Hey, where have you been?' "

That was 2008. With a lot of encouragement from Kelly, Barner got his act together both on the football field and in the classroom. Gained 4,214 yards from scrimmage and scored 48 touchdowns in four seasons at Oregon. Also earned a degree in criminology.

Now, he's in his second season playing for Kelly with the Eagles.

No one in the Eagles' locker room has been around Kelly longer than Barner. No one in there knows him better.

When he hears somebody else who was in that locker room, like Brandon Boykin, suggest that Kelly has trouble relating to players, particularly those of color, well, he just doesn't see it.

"I can't speak on another guy's perspective of Chip," Barner said. "My perspective is my perspective based on my experiences.

"I met Chip when I was 18. He's been the same guy since then. He hasn't changed. He doesn't deal with guys any differently now than he did then.

"I don't see what [Brandon] Boykin sees just because I've dealt with Chip. I've been in his life and he's been in my life, since I was 18."

I don't see what Boykin sees either. I like Boykin. He's a smart, thoughtful guy. But the 5-10, 185 cornerback spent the last year and change with the Eagles frustrated over the fact that Kelly and defensive coordinator Bill Davis wouldn't give him an opportunity to compete for a starting corner job because of his size. That clearly colored his perception of his head coach.

Kelly has said several times that he has an open-door policy, and he does. But that doesn't mean he wants players stopping by his office to show him pictures of the kids.

If you've got a problem or a question, come on in. If you just want to sit around and make small talk and discuss the latest episode of "Ballers," maybe some other time.

Both on and off the practice field, Kelly is all about maximizing time. Up-tempo practices with nearly three times as many reps as most NFL teams and no standing around. A structured training and meeting schedule that gets players out of the NovaCare Complex and home to their families earlier than probably any other team in the league.

"The way Chip does things, it's really efficient," said offensive lineman John Moffitt, who signed with the Eagles in late June. "I really respect it as a player. It's easy to buy into. Because it's really about keeping you in the best shape, keeping you in the best health, getting you recovered and getting you out on the field and performing your best.

"There's not a lot of messing around or slack or extra stuff going on. It's all business. And it makes the day go faster. You're home by 6:30, which gives you time to rest. So it's very efficient."

Kelly isn't antisocial. He's a cordial guy who is capable of making small talk. Even asked me if I was wearing sunscreen yesterday as he made his way from his news conference to the field for the team's noon practice at the Linc.

"We have a pretty structured day where guys are in meetings," Kelly said. "I don't just walk around say, 'Hey, let me go grab him and let's sit down and have a cup of coffee together.'

"When they get here, they're doing stuff, especially in the offseason. We're limited with our time [because of the restrictions in the league's collective bargaining agreement]. You get a guy for four hours, there's not a time where we're all sitting around and holding hands and singing 'Kumbaya' together.

"We're in meeting rooms. We're in the weight room. We're getting stuff done. We're on the training field getting stuff done and then we're out of there. I think maybe if they expanded the time we can spend with guys [it might be different]. But I don't think it's any different than any other head coach.

"One of the things I miss about being a position coach is you get pretty close to your players because you're with them all the time. That's a great bond to have. But as a head coach, you're not in those [position group] meetings."

Ike Reese spent nine seasons in the NFL, including the first seven with the Eagles. He was there for Ray Rhodes' ignominious 3-13 swan song in 1998, and he was there for the first six years of the Andy Reid era.

Reese, now a talk-show host on 94WIP, doesn't see what Boykin sees either. What he sees from Kelly is the same thing he saw from Reid in his first few years as the Eagles head coach.

"I remind people all the time that I was drafted by Ray Rhodes," he said. "That was more of a country-club environment. Andy wasn't having any of that when he came here.

"Andy made sure he weeded out all the people he didn't want those first 2-3 years. After that, he began to loosen up. Year 4, Year 5, we began to see a different side of Big Red.

"Those first three years, to me, Andy was no different than Chip. What you're getting right now is guys who are using an incident that happened two summers ago [with Riley Cooper] to try and use that as a cover, as opposed to looking at themselves and the situation realistically, and palming it off on something else."

Kelly admitted yesterday that Boykin's comments and some of racism suggestions from McCoy and Tra Thomas could be blowback from his decision to keep Cooper on the team two summers ago after he was caught on video yelling a racial slur at a Kenny Chesney concert. But he has no regrets about the way he handled it.

"Riley made a mistake," he said. "But we all backed him. Michael [Vick] backed him. Jason Avant backed him. That's part of being in an organization and on a team.

"He was 100 percent wrong. Those are things that never should be said and I hope he learned his lesson. I think he regrets what he said every single day. I see that. But do I regret what I did in terms of how we handled Riley? No."

Said Reese: "It's unfair to Chip because he's doing nothing different than any other coach. I don't know how many white coaches there are in the league. But I guarantee you they all cut black players and trade them. And they're not being labeled like he is.

"I think it's a little unfair to him. I think it's more or less about guys who are unwilling to accept change as opposed to guys that are."

Blog: eagletarian.com